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5. Holy Trinity Church

5. Holy Trinity (Barn) Church.
This church stands about a mile and a half south of Bawnboy. It is a rare example of a barn church. The long narrow plan is most unusual with the alters on the rear wall and the congregation- men to the south and women to the north, facing each other.

The austerity of Kildoagh, combined with its date, 1776 and the fact that almost nothing had been altered since it was built makes it of great importance. "There are two pointed door cases and four pointed windows on the front, and four pointed windows on the rear wall. The walls are built of rubble stone and rendered with lime plaster. The pointed windows with much of their original glass have good timber tracery and chamfered dressings of finely cut limestone. The door cases also have chamfered limestone dressings. Over the altar is a wooden crucifix, which is quite rare and could well date from the early I9th century.
An Foras Forbatha describes Kildoagh as follows:

A building most moving in its austere dignity and in the testimony it bears to a bygone but vital phase of history. A long narrow building set parallel to the road, of six bays, with doors in the second and fifth bays. The alter is in the middle of the back wall, so that most of the congregation sit in either the right hand or left hand half of the building, facing each other. There are galleries to the east and west. The entrances are on the north side, and on this side the windows have rather elaborate tracery Iike that at Ballyconnell and Killegar Protestant churches, but on the south side there is church-warden glazing. Externally, in the north wall, there is a Latin tablet recording the building of the church in 1796 under `Rev. Dom. Patritius Maguire'. Almost nothing has been altered in this church, even down to the original large earthenware tiles of the floor. A great rarity, certainly one of the finest barn churches surviving in Ireland, and as such is of international importance.

5. Holy Trinity (Barn) Church
Holy Trinity (barn) Church

 

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Last update: 2 January, 2009 15:30